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linisiane · 8 months

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What do Rick Sanchez, Don Quixote, and Harry Du Bois Have in Common?

In all three of these stories, these characters are ‘self-aware’ in that they intentionally play into the tropes of the stories they’re satirizing (Rick Sanchez satirizing sitcoms, Don Quixote satirizing chivalric romances, and Harry Dubois satirizing roleplaying games). However, the trick to their ‘self-awareness’ is that they’re lying to themselves.

This post is LONG, so feel free to skip to the end if you're just interested in "The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois" (in bolded green) if you don't feel like reading the rest of the analysis. I go into the meaning of the political vision quests, the meaning of the 4th wall breaking RPG elements like copotypes and Jamrock Shuffling, and the effect this has on the player's relationship to Harry Du Bois!

(Common) Rick Sanchez (L)

Although Rick acts like he can see the audience and uses marketable catchphrases like “Wubbalubbadubdub” to appeal to sitcom sensibilities (“Bazinga;” “Did I do that?” “Legen- Wait For It -Dary;” etc.), the truth of the matter is that WITHIN HIS REALITY, he is not a sitcom character.

He truly does not know he’s in a sitcom.

He’s just an asshole.

ID A screenshot from the show Rick and Morty, with subtitled dialogue that says: Wubbalubbadubdub! That's my new thing! I'm kind of like, what's his name, Arsenio! Wubbalubbadubdub! See you next week. Beside the screenshot is a picture of the mentioned Arsenio, who is the titular character to a sitcom called The Arsenio Hall Show End ID

Rick has ATROCIOUS main character syndrome. Truly obnoxious. We happen to be enjoying (debate-able) it from our TV screens, but he doesn’t know that! Hoe’s just calling his family ‘side characters’ and taking them on traumatizing ‘B plot’ adventures to humor-cope with his multiverse induced nihilism. (it is NOT WORKING)

Dan Harmon, as a big fan of the storytelling theory behind sitcoms, has a thing for these type of self-aware-but-not-really characters in his shows. Abed (from his other well-known sitcom named ‘Community') is basically a film student obsessed with film tropes—

Which means he’s eternally making meta self-aware quips on the show without actually being self-aware. He’s not Deadpool, he's just a movie nerd.

It's a wink and a nod to show the audience, Hey, we’re aware that nowadays people are savvy enough to comment on when they’re in a wacky sitcom plot.

This is ‘some looney tunes type shit,’ amirite guys?

(This trick is called lampshading, it got popular recently with Marvel movies and the influence of Joss Whedon's writing (@dingdongyouarewrong), but it's also going through a bit of cliche fatigue right now. "That happened" jokes are an example that I know so many people are sick of, partly because it feels like writers include self-awareness/lampshading as a shield from criticism by pretending you can't critique a problem they're self-aware about!

Let me highlight it to you in the rest of this essay as a tool in satire/pastiche.)

'Donkey Hotel' (according to my speech to text)

To explain Donkey Hotel's deal, I must remark: This guy is on some ancient mental illness type beat.

Now, in the ancient era of Hippocrates, there used to be the hot idea that there are four major human temperaments, and these temperaments are influenced by the balances of liquids in our body called humors. And that an imbalance of the four would lead to an over representing of a temperament.

Don Quixote had a 'Choleric' temperament, which is an overrepresentation of yellow bile and characterized with qualities such as 'hot and dry' and emotional irregularities such as increased anger or behaving irrationally. That's our knight!

Now obviously we know that the idea of 4 Humors in our body controlling our temperament is a BS simplification of mental health, BUT, there’s usually a kernel of truth in ancient theories. The universe really was made up of elements like Aristotle theorized, just not the fire, earth, water, air that he thought they were.

Similarly, our author our man, Cervantes, was using the 4 Humors more to develop a physical/biological explanation to Don's mental illness.

All this to say, Don Quixote is currently deluding himself into believing he is a gallant knight, off to defend the honor of his lady love, the total paragon of a chivalric romance novel because, and I quote, “he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.”

Let's pause.

An escapist stupor that completely wiped the mind of its host?

(FANART BY @so-engery! Check them out!)

ID Two images. One is is Gustave Dore's "Don Quixote Dreaming" drawing. The other is Disco Elysium fanart by Marie Enger @so-engery. Both showcase the main character of their respective works, slumped and surrounded by mad figments of their imagination, highlighting the parallels between the two. Harry with his Skill voices and Don with knights and fairytale creatures. End ID.

That’s our boy, Harrier Du Bois right there!

And while obviously Harry's condition at the start of Disco Elysium is more based on modern understanding of psychology (aka alcohol did it to him, not intense insomnia and a chivalric romance bookathon), it’s real neat we get this this little parallel before we even dig into Harry!

Now, with that neat explanation of why he’s self-aware out of the way, Don Quixote’s deal: Again, he’s not actually self-aware, he’s quite possibly the opposite of self-aware, and EVERYBODY (even the audience!) knows it. He’s only self aware in the sense that he’s acting like a character in a fictional story, which he is, but he’s got the wrong genre.

He thinks he’s in an action/romance, but he’s actually in real life—A satire of the action/romance genre!

Well, caveat.

Is Don Donning the 'Don' Inspirationally or is he Donning the 'Don' to Act as a Don About the Downs of Chivalry?

I read it as Don Quixote donning the 'don' title to act as a don at the college of 'please touch grass and stop romanticizing romantic chivalry.'

A super popular adaptational take, however, is to read him like he's an inspirational dreamer held back by a harsh reality.

Big Nate's Book Reviews on YouTube did a sweet review that highlights this perspective, along with his lil doobie,

that Don Quixote's perspective brings fresh child-like imagination and fantasy to the mundanity of the lives of the people around him. Nate says that Don Quixote and Sancho are "Truly the homies;" they're the first times he's ever felt that he could "find friends in characters in a book."

So there's definitely a joy and a message to the dreamer reading! BUT I tend to be a bit cynical about this, like it can feel a bit too similar to USAmerican Exceptionalism to me.

To clarify what I mean, let's do a Rick parallel.

Don Quixote, as a character, is more similar to the FANS of Rick and Morty than he is to Rick. (Which is its own commentary about how little we have progressed as a society since this book was published like 400 years ago, but also the way media is influenced by prior media.)

To explain THAT, lemme first say that there’s a sort of meta irony (which is how I describe this phenomena according to J-Reg’s theory of satire, but I don’t know the actual name of this) in the ‘he’s just like me fr’ guys. ‘Literally me’ guys. Guys who pseudo imitate Patrick Bateman, literally any Ryan gosling character, etc.

ID A youtube screenshot of 3 different videos titled "literally me" "Literally Me" or "Literally me (I'm mentally insane)" with different Ryan Reynolds characters as the thumbnail. In the "I'm mentally insane" video description, one of the tags is the word "sigma." End ID

Often these characters are meant to be made fun of as parodies of another trope, like Don Quixote is to a chivalric romance protagonist, but there’s a certain subset of the audience that is either too dumb to get it or just doesn’t have the context or background to get it.

Like the dudes who watch fight club, and just end up making fight clubs of their own. Or the way people misinterpreted Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ as celebrating the US, instead of its true message of lambasting the US for its hypocritical treatment of its veterans. Or the glorification of Rorschach from Watchmen despite him basically being a MAGA. Or the way USAmericans didn’t get Starship Troopers because it was a parody of US military fascism.

There are tons of examples of these because of satire usually says more about the reader/viewer than it does about the author, like a Rorschach test (he really is aptly named). (And it’s why it’s more often fascists/conservatives wildly misinterpreting leftist media. People are more likely to come with a conservative perspective than vice versa bc conservatism is, by its definition, the norm. Though this does still happen on more progressive sides e.g. TJLC.) They didn't see or chose not to see the irony.

Cue the Reddit dudebros misinterpreting Disco Elysium as pro centrist or “all ideologies are equally bad" and the INSANE 'you have to have a high IQ...' 'rick is good and objectively correct' Rick and Morty fans.

ID Two screenshots. One of the infamous "To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty" copypasta. One of a Disco Elysium Reddit post titled "Disco Elysium is Not Politically In Favor Of Any Ideology." End ID

Speaking of Rick and Morty fans, this is what I mean by the idea that Don Quixote is more like Rick's fans than he is like Rick. Much like the way Don un-self-aware-ly misinterprets his satirical reality for the chivalric romance of his favorite novels, so too do Rick and Morty fans un-self-aware-ly misinterpret Rick's nihilist satire on the sitcom for what is cool and good to do in real life. Plus, I can totally see these type of dudes unironically saying "Milady" to keep chivalry alive. But, there's one level further to this, beyond even seeing the irony, which I call the 'he's just like me fr' guys.

Now, in the case of the 'he's just like me fr' guys, it's not that they're mistaking the satire for sincerity—they totally understand that Patrick Bateman is a satirical take on Yuppie 'grind till you make it alpha' culture.

They're doing a secret third thing—meta irony—where they understand that Patrick Bateman is meant to be bad but act like they're un-self-aware and missed the irony anyway.

It's supposed to be a joke, buuuuut it's a joke the same way people will say "SLAY!" as a joke until it's unironically a part of their vocabulary. The ambiguity is key.

I'd argue that the dreamer Quixote approach is an application of 'he's just like me fr' view to Don Quixote, where he's 'a Chad rejecting reality in favor of the perseverance of man's whimsy' to some people, even as they joke that he's delusional ("Literally me (I'm mentally insane)").

Don Quixote certainly isn't doing it on purpose—again, he's un-self-aware, and he even got bullied out of it in part 2 (which admittedly I haven't read). Yet, there's a genuine sadness there of a man with such a penchant for adventure getting bullied that makes you wanna start humoring him.

It's ironic but not: Meta irony.

ID A screenshot of Jreg's "Post-Irony, Meta-Irony, and Post-Truth Satire (Video)" thumbnail. End ID

But yeah, meta irony is all fine and dandy when it's about slaying, but when it's about emulating the patriarchal psychopath, Patrick Bateman, or using edge-y humor to spread alt-right talking points, you start to wonder if there can be something insidious to the 'he's just like me fr' approach.

To put it best, the wild popularity of the Dreamer Don Quixote interpretation feels like the result of USAmerican 'grind till you make it' 'individual exceptionalism' 'it would suck for you, but i'm built different' values distorting the absurdity of being a reality denying dreamer, the same way we struggle to understand the Starship Troopers because it just feels normal/celebratory to us.

Don Quixote

So I think Don Quixote resonates strongest, for me, in the way it boldly states that reality is beautiful and worth living in without needing the opium of escapist fantasy.

For one, Cervantes is a rare ye olden feminist king who takes the time to point out that one man's escapist chivalric masculine fantasy is another woman's misogynistic reality.

To demonstrate, he has many examples of female characters telling off men for projecting romantic fantasies on them, but a more relevant way is how he writes Don Quixote as literally renaming some random woman he's never met 'Dulcinea' because he's decided she is his Lady he's given his eternal servitude to.

He renames her Dulcinea because it's "a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him."

Which is PEAK satire of the misogynistic objectification of chivalry. If only the Rick and Morty "Milady" stans had the self-awareness this book had 400 years ago.

(Sidebar, but does anybody else think Don Quixote would make an absolutely killer Drag King persona? Don Queerote... Plus the ballet about him would help with the pre-existing choreo/music. Just a thought!)

But on another level, Don Quixote is full of interesting characters or stories outside of the chivalric knight conceit!

ID Pen illustrations (aka engravings by Gustave Dore) of two events happening simultaneously at the same inn in Don Quixote. The one above is of Don's assault on the wineskins in his sleep. The one below is of the reunion of Dorotea, Luscinda, Cardenio, and Fernando in the inn. End ID

People often clown on the novel for having so much time dedicated to the soap opera antics of side characters totally unrelated to the knight plot, but their antics being outside of Quixote's chivalric view emphasizes how life is interesting even when you're not following a delusional knight lifestyle!

Romance and reunions and betrayals that Don never really understands because he's too busy fighting windmills and wineskins! Yes, the delusion allowed him to go out and explore the world, but there's something so silly and sad about missing whimsy of real life in favor of living in escapist Knight Fanfiction. Reading about Cervantes's soap-opera-worthy life only reinforces this whimsy for reality and touching grass.

The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois

Preface: My main experience is JRPGs, not so much other Western RPGs and tabletop games. So although I’m saying it’s a satire of these tropes, and I noticed a lot of these things as ‘satire’ and 'parody,' I’m not totally enmeshed in the subculture the creators were going for, so I might need some corrections.

Finally, this transitions into the deal with Harry! It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality—so how does this play out with the RPG!?

Weeellll, it goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.

One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.

ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID

The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.

But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.

Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.

Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.

It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!

ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID

Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.

A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.

The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.

Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.

If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.

It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.

As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”

In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control. But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.

Harry Du Bois and Self-Awareness: Copotypes? More like Cope-otypes.

So that's on Disco Elysium and being aware of RPG elements in general, but let's deep dive into Harry and his Copotypes and political alignments like the OP!

I kind of want to round this last one out with what this all means. WHY am I, and others, linking self-awareness and satire? What's the link here?

Irony is one of the major tools of satirical writing, and there's always a little irony in being self-aware and doing it anyway, I think. It's specifically that Meta-Ironic element/Lampshading that is so rich for Touch-Grass satire because it parallels the futility/irony of self-awareness in real life.

The copotypes work this way.

ID A screenshot of a youtube comment. @jbeast3385 "Harry fundamentally takes on extreme interpretations of every ideology in the game as a coping mechanism for the tragedy that is his life, and it's amazing to see the amount of care given to extending an understanding of why each ideology appeals to his fractured mind. Each quest makes him something of a Don Quixote, searching for a purer purpose through political thought, failing spectacularly with it, but still fundamentally developing him and inspiring others beside him." End ID

The copotypes and the political alignments are a parody of classes and moral alignments. Rather than being a knight or a wizard, you're a superstarcop or a sorrycop! They don't do much, like there are no fireballs for an art cop, but they do poke fun at the ways the player is choosing to play Harry! Instead of chaotic good or neutral evil, you can be a communard or an ultralib! Which both involve spouting hilariously inappropriate talking points to the other citizens of Revachol.

What's fascinating, as @fagcrisis of this post says, is that these alignments are statements of how your Harry copes with the real world and the past/how he justifies what he does.

From the Solution to the Boring Cop Thought:

When someone says something political, the first three thoughts in your head are a ludicrous hodgepodge of communism, fascism and stock tips. When they ask you why you did something, it's superstardom, apocalypse, or the *mea culpas* of a flagellant cop monk

You start off making some choices based on the limited dialogue options of Harry's bizarre personality. If you play it like any other RPG power fantasy, BAM, the game hits you with the "Regular Law Official" thought, and you're labeled "Boring Cop." Or if you're apologizing to get the 'good' route, BAM, the game hits you with the "Rigorous Self-Critique" thought, and you're labelled "Sorry Cop!"

The game makes you 'aware' of your playing style, a little poke to say 'Stop being so scared of failures! You're boring! Sorry is not enough! Stop trying to be 'lawful good' (ACAB) and be a human!'

From the same Solution:

It's not easy, reaching for the fourth option -- the normal one. But you have. And now you're not *just* crazy, you're also *boring*.

Some people get this taste of self-awareness and fully embrace diving into the deep end of the game—Disco baby! Others lean into the sorry/boring/moralist cop in an ironic 'self-aware' sort of way—like the technique of Lampshading, since we're our own writers as RPG players.

But on a Harry level, it's also about HIM becoming self-aware of his habits, of internalizing these thoughts about his actions, his past, his coping mechanisms.

Seeking either “sweet oblivion” or to become “a different kind of animal,” many of the possible roleplaying choices are rooted in his desire to forget, evade or reframe the past. Whether self-destruction through drug abuse, fantasies of superstardom or visions of impending doom; it’s all in the service of not wanting to face the past, and the disastrous effects Harry’s continuous failure to do so has had on his life. - Vice

As the @fagcrisis of this post noted, Dora pretty much ALWAYS mentions the way Harry escapes reality by thinking of himself as an archetype, like other people are NPCs in an RPG. "like hes a self aware character but in the shitty way where him knowing he is a character and him acting like it only makes it worse because there isnt a story to escape from, he just cant cope with the real world" He's pulling a meta-ironic ''he's just like me fr" with Guillaume Le Million (who hangs himself) and superstardom the way "he's just like me fr" guys do it for Ryan Gosling.

And each copotype and political alignment are an opportunity to satirically critique the flaws and failures of each coping mechanism.

Cope-otype: Fascism

"Fascism, being marked, according to Paxton, by a need to compensate for humiliation, promises easy solutions to someone like Harry. It’s a crutch to prop up threatened masculinity, a rhetoric to shift blame for personal failings to ominous outside forces." - Vice

This game's satirical take on fascism is sort of perfect, literally making it about the lower intestines, 'gut instinct,' and bullshit (@spilledkaleidoscope). To be frank, fascists are 'full of shit,' and the vision quest highlights the way fascism isn't about a coherent ideology like 'returning to the past,' but rather it's a hodgepodge of SHIT thrown together to prop up hurt ego, threatened masculinity, of giving an easy scape-goated answer to the question of how Harry's supposed to face his past and his future.

The answer? He shoots it.

It's accurate in a way that doesn't reinforce the 'cool' aesthetics and pageantry fascism is obsessed with, what with literally calling fascists full of shit and all. Kim notices your change in expression, your stoic 'noble suffering' fascist face, and immediately calls it constipated. Bless.

Yet, even as Kim calls you out, even as you're aware of fascism's failures, how it destroys you ala Harry Du Bois -> Detective Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau, Fascist!Harry still believes because he can't face a wounded ego.

Cope-otype: Ultralib

Ultralibs on the other hand? I think it's telling that Idiot Doom Spiral is basically ultralib Harry's foil and a major questline NPC—the one who gives you Tequila Sunset.

Even the names are foils. Idiot Doom Spiral names himself that way to romanticize it, to make it into a marketable story, "but it keeps him in this state too, like a vicious cycle. The name ‘George’ is a name that still connects him to humanity," while Idiot Doom Spiral is a way to 'accept his place' even though it's miserable and keeps him from doing something about it, nor connect with other people, as @kindaeccentric put it in this post.

Similarly, the megarich light bending guy in the UltraLib quest LITERALLY is much more unlikely to connect with poorer people because the Rougon-Macquart coefficient literally dictates that we cannot see the richest people because their networth bends the light around them. It's an inversion of the way rich people are ignorant to poverty in real life, and here's a really good fic that covers this coefficient!

Finally, this mirrors Tequila Sunset as a name as well, the way it's a cope for hating himself. Instead of being miserable, he glorifies his misery by calling himself a funky, disco drink name, even as it symbolizes being washed up or even symbolizes the pale swallowing all, depending on how you play him (@palin-tropos).

So much of the ultralib plotline is about adding value — whether by sprucing yourself up with a new name like Tequila or Idiot or by 're-conceptualization' — through stuff like grind/hustle culture. An obsession with increasing networth but also 'giving back' to the community, as philanthropists put it.

But the satire of the ultralib vision quest is highlighting how hollow 'adding value' is, how much of it's just competition for wealth for the sake of wealth with no real meaningful answer or value.

ID Two screenshots of the game Disco Elysium. The first is of the horseback monument as it is. A matrix of cables and ropes isolate the fragmented bits in thin air. The second is described as this through in-game dialogue: HORSEBACK MONUMENT - The scaffolding around the old monument has been taken down, In its place are the spoils of your investment. Numerous rods and ropes still hold the original reassemblage in place. YOU- Reflect on the re-conceptualization. HORSEBACK MONUMENT - An apricot sceptre shines party-bright across the monument. Glitter balls dangle like severed heads below the eternal king of disco. It is unmistakably a vision of you in your prime -- a killer on the performance floor, icon for all. End ID

It's 'reconceptualizing' the Horseback Monument — the symbol of both the bombing of the revolution and the enduring of spirit the communards anyways, the way they've built a monument to freeze in time the moment of the profligate king being blown up — by building it in your own image. The fact that to do so you need to exploit the labor of an artist so you can make a profit, and it doesn't truly 'give back' to the community in any way. In fact, it's almost the opposite, like you've ruined the community monument by painting yourself AS THE KING.

It's why even Harry admits that "You're just insane, insane and gone. Even six billion won't fix you if she’s not there." Each copotype and political ideology contends with their own version of this as Harry learns to grow and face his past head on.

The Marriage of Fictional Conventions and Real Human Psychology

In the end, you can't just lean into an ideology or an archetype and hope that it'll answer all you problems.

But more than that — being self-aware about your issues doesn't solve anything either, no more than lampshading "fixes" any problems with your TV show.

It is this parallel between what Harry learns as he progresses and what the player learns as they progress that makes us empathize/resonate with Harry.

From acting erratically, then realizing it's part of an ideology, self-awarely adopting an ideology, to seeing how it fails and learning not to hide behind it. From "He's a blank slate so I can project my power fantasy onto him," then "I don't actually have a lot of power or control here," to "He's not just my RPG character, he's a person."

He's becoming a person, twice over.

It's ludonarrative resonance or consistency. A marriage of literary convention and real human psychology, on two scales.

And this resonance demonstrates why this genre of self-aware pastiche character is so popular: At it's best, you're forced to contend with the characters as fully realized people, paradoxically because they highlight the difference between fictional conventions and reality.

By acknowledging and poking fun of the fictional conventions, Harry Du Bois, Don Quixote, and Rick Sanchez feel more real to us.

And their stories come packaged with rich themes about dangers of disconnecting yourself from reality and the short distance 'self-awareness' alone can take you, which will resonate with almost every one of us here on the Internet. At least, I know it resonated with me.

BONUS:

Shen Yuan from Scum Villain Self-Saving System (@whetstonefires) also fits this list!!!!!!

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afriendlygoblin · 11 months

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finished Tears of the Kingdom (just the main quests/story) and i am currently dying, crying, throwing up, rolling on the floor, hitting my head against the walls, screaming, melting, combusting and desintegrating all at once and multiple times in a row.

SPOILERS

no really the Ganondorf fight in 4 parts, Zelda helping us, then her being turned back, THE DIVE AND THE CATCH, THE GODF*CKING ECHO TO THE OPENING SCENE,

LINK, I'M HOME

GBXNXJDKKD MY HEART CANNOT HANDLE ALL OF THAT I SWEAR

THE WAY HE GRABS HER AND CLINGS TO HER AS THEY PLUMMET AND HOW GENTLY HE CARRIES HE OJT OF THE WATER AND HOW HE PUTS HER DOWN AHHHHHHHH

AND HOW VISUALLY BEAUTIFUL ALL OF THAT IS, REALLY THE ONLY THINGS THAT KEEP ME FROM PUTTING SCREENSHOTS AS MY LAPTOP WALLPAPER ARE

IDK WHICH ONE TO PICK

my friend hasn't finished the game yet and i don't want to spoil her

BUT GBGBXNXKDNWN THIS GAME

now the big downside is that there is no post game, just like with BOTW i'm really frustrated by that. like you go through a 4 part epic battle, save the love of your life from an eternal curse and a fall to death and when you finish w1tching the credits you.... are back to right before the final battle???????

please Nintendo i just wanted to see her again stop taking her away from me

#tears of the kindom spoilers #totk spoilers #zelink #zelda totk #totk link #please give us a postgame #i want to see them happy together again #they deserve it

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6ad6ro · 2 months

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ok. i finally finished final fantasy vii rebirth. and i wanna talk about it. i guess you could call this my "review". this post will be vague and spoiler-free unless you click on the "read more".

i do love this game, but it's an absolute mixed bag: story: 10/10 combat mechanics: 9/10 music: 9/10 art direction: 10/10 voice acting (jp): 10/10 open world (non-quest stuff): 4/10 sidequests: 6/10 minigames: 3/10 pacing: 1/10 does this game have flaws? yes. is it as good as the og ff7? no. but is it worth playing? absolutely. i almost feel like this game needs a "cheat sheet" in order to know what parts to play and what parts to avoid. but the good parts (mostly the linear main story stuff) is SO gd good that it's still a must-play game. ok but now i'm gonna go into details (and spoilers) under the rm cut.

so i'll go over some of my scores. firstly, the story is the main reason to play this. they def fuck around a lot, maybe they bait and switch a bit too often, but in the end it makes for a very compelling (or at least interesting) narrative. at first, i was REALLY worried that this game was gonna turn into just some "fan pandering nightmare". and it felt like it was "ff7 without it's claws". esp when everybody was dancing like pop stars and aerith and tifa kept high fiving. but... it def got into that good ff7 trauma we know and love later on. and respect to them for following through with killing aerith. yes, they did what i sorta expected. they teased tifa dying instead, teased aerith NOT dying, and then killed aerith anyway. they EASILY could have left her alive, but they didn't. they kept in the loss angle, which imo is what makes ff7 "ff7". i kinda LOVE that now you have a batshit cloud "seeing" aerith's ghost like it's star wars. and everyone else seems almost... afraid of him. and rightfully so. also i LOVED the zack stuff, even though it was absolutely confusing. i like that they're hinting at zack somehow breaking through his reality into the rm universe. i also like the tease that... idk... will there be another "party" involving zack, kyrie, biggs (if he's still alive or not)? regardless, a great story!

the combat feels mostly improved over rm. the gameplay is fantastic with very few flaws. difficulty is way more balanced than rm, with easy feeling a bit harder and normal feeling less unfair. the only times i felt frustrated by the gameplay was when they laid the "stone" status effect on too thick in parts bc it felt cheap. is it as good as the og combat? no. it still def has the unfun "you desperately need to heal but don't have a charge and the enemy is immune to everything so you just die" thing. but credit where its due, the "free item a few times per battle" materia fixes a lotta those issues.

the music is incredible. the remakes of old songs generally kick ass. some of the new music was pretty good, too. though it gets a point off because a lot of the open world stuff music felt... generic? this is just a situation where the og game's music is TOO GOOD, so the new music will always be fighting this sort of uphill battle.

the art was perfect. just the shading alone... like jesus this game is absolutely beautiful. i took so many goddamn screenshots in game, and they'd often end up looking like key renders, even tho it'd just be a random ss i could take at any angle. this game went above and beyond all expectations.

the voice acting... there was SO MUCH and it was all SO GOOD. tho i did switch to jp voices. bc... in this sorta storytelling, eng just sounds like "drama club"? idk there's a reason the language of origin cast is usually better and that's just how it is. it was perfect.

ok now we're gonna get into some of my issues, starting with the open world. it's not ENTIRELY awful? some was genuinely fun and exciting. but the majority was busywork. like it's so weird when the mainline stuff was so good that this would feel like a shitty ubisoft game. and chadley... fuck that dude. worst character in the series. but for SOME gd reason he ends up talking to you nonstop! i hit the point where i'd wince any time i heard his "radio" turn on. he took an already mediocre open world and made it way worse. fuckin chudly.

the sidequests that weren't just repeated busywork were usually neat. tho some were bad, and others withstood their welcome. the cutscenes/dialogue were usually fun or genuinely great, but they too often came at the cost of wasting your time. they often had shit rewards. and they often incorporated the shittiest "minigames" ever (i'll go into this more in a minute). example: you gotta find ingredients for a character who is learning to cook. but it isn't just going out to find them in the world. no no no. you gotta follow a dog (ftr i love the song) as they slowly meander through a jungle, running into every mob they see. and when you finally get to where the "salt" is, there's a dumb scavenger hunt minigame where you need to find only the 5(?) salt piles that look like the photo. THEN you gotta get on your chocobo and look for mushrooms in a confusing, puzzle-like terrain. which also involves a smelling/follow the direction minigame, which always leads you into mobs. and once you get to each mushroom? there's this STUPID picking minigame. after all that, what reward do you get? an accessory that functions like maybe the worst materia in the game, but also takes up the accessory slot, making it even more unusable. FUCK this game sometimes, lol.

speakin of "fuck this game", the minigames. the 200 minigames (exaggeration, but it really feels like that many). some are genuinely incredible, like the piano minigame? which might be one of my favorite minigames of all time, it's legit THAT good. or "red xiii rocket league". but for every good minigame, there was a mediocre one. and then a terrible one. or one that gets WAY too hard in higher difficulties, like the mog game which starts fun but ends up dogshit and unplayable a few levels in. even tho the good and passable minigames are the majority, the bad minigames? they're maybe some of the worst minigames i've ever played in my goddamn life. like, by design, they're almost anti-fun. i genuinely believe some of the people in charge of the bad minigames should be blackballed from the industry. it's bewildering.

and finally that brings us to the pacing. if you play the game the way they seemingly expect you to play, getting to each new area and sidequesting a bit before continuing on with the story? then you'll spend five hours of mediocre/bad sidequest for each hour of good story. that's even worst if you're a "completionist" at all, you can triple or quadruple that number. we all loved remake because it "expanded the midgar section". we were all hoping they'd do the same with the og open world. the very idea of "big open world, but so much bigger" seemed incredible. but they certainly gave it to us! like they gave us exactly what we said we wanted, lol. when i first started playing rb, i was mostly completing each area. by the second or third area, i was more than 50 hours in. "burnout" is a gross understatement. all the mediocre sidequests combined with the sometimes unplayable minigames ALSO COMBINED with fuckin chudly? and i actually started to hate this game. it made me miserable. i'd get to a new area and just roll my eyes. i'd see a new minigame tutorial pop up and i'd mash "cancel". but wouldn't you know it, once i started skipping most minigames/sidequests? i started havin a ton of fun. turns out this pacing issue can be mitigated a lot. straight up you can ignore most of the open world, and i would actually strongly recommend it. if you DO wanna sidequest a bit between story, i'd say put on a podcast, set the difficulty to easy, and turn the voices down (bc chudly). and don't do everything. oh no. just do enough to unlock the chocobo, to buy the best materia chudly has from that area, and maybe get the summoning. even THAT is probably too much. bc near the end of the game, you get the opportunity to go back and finish a bunch of the stuff you missed the first time. and i actually enjoyed a lotta that stuff then! it was almost like a period of rest and relaxation before the end story stuff.

there are ways, intentional or not, to make this game feel even BETTER than remake. when you skip most of the side stuff, it's paced incredibly well. so it's hard to say it's a bad game. it's actually a really GOOD game with "too much side content". if you treat the open world stuff as just like, a living, detailed world you glance at as you zoom by? it's actually really cool that it's there. i have a couple more pros/cons that i wanna mention, but i don't know where else to put em. like the end fights. thematically, i adored em. in execution, it went on for way way WAY too long. it was like a 15 (yes FIFTEEN) phase fight. on normal, i swear it felt like it took close to two hours, full of unskippable cutscenes and only like one checkpoint. it also takes away al of your team composition too, consistently forcing you to use characters you don't wanna use in the hardest fights in the game. first time, i got through to the very last sliver of final sephiroth's health, only for him to cast some dogshit unblockable "everyone is at 1hp" move at the end. it was ok bc "i'd prepared for this". so i instantly had one character use a gigapotion on the other, who i switched to so they could dodge just to be extra safe. the potion... missed? how? and then before i had a chance to use another, he killed the remaining character. bad game. shit game. but whatever, i hit retry. and i couldn't believe it. it sent me back 7 phases. i was livid. it had sucked the air outta the room. so i said fuck it and restarted the whole fight from the start on easy, because i can't tolerate that kind of scumbag game design that wastes a player's time. and wouldn't you know it, turns out i'd been at the very end of the fight when i died. if the potion had gone off like it shoulda, i would have won, no question. ironically even on easy, that trash situation happened again, but the potion actually went off this time, that was the only difference. but yeah. fuck that fight. it was cooler thematically than the final fight in rm, but it was three times as long, and three times more unfair. fuck whoever designed this fight, they too should be blackballed from the industry, lol.

the last thing i wanna talk about is queens blood. bc my feelings on it are sorta all over. so it starts out kinda boring, like as basic as ff8 triple triad, but wayyy less fun. and you're very limited in who you can play and what cards you can add to your deck. the ai seemingly "cheats", but it's so "linear" that you can win anyhow. and they musta known they'd lose most players, so they legit give you the ability to "flip the game board" at any point in the match and start over with zero punishment. they knew the game wasn't rly fair by design. but it's still good they had the easy retry feature, or they woulda lost me too. the qb experience sorta continues this way until you get to the latter junon area, where suddenly you run into... idk what to call it. intense difficulty spikes? like this dickwad who's playin a rockabilly guitar. FUCK that dude's deck and FUCK his ai. almost single-handedly got me to drop qb altogether. i was absolutely done, had decided qb was just a poorly designed game. thankfully, right after junon they have this big tournament on the boat to costa del sol and it's really fun. you suddenly are getting cards that have actual strategy. and suddenly qb opens up. there was a slight misstep after the boat where they make you play these stupid "puzzle" versions of qb, but you can look up guides and, even if they aren't fun, they help teach you about the game. anyways, i cautiously started playin more matches in later areas (skippin fights that seemed too lame), and before i knew it, i'd kinda fallen in love w the game. it also helped that they started incorporating this fun n bizarre story, too. so idk. i'd say play qb the same way you play the side content, skip a lot of it until you get to the end game? and then go back with cards you bought or won and finish the ones u missed. it's so weird that so much of this game works this way. and i could see someone arguing that "it's just a bad game". because when most games hand you content, even side content, most players expect they should at least give the content a fair shot. it really is kinda poorly executed. but! there are so any ways to mitigate the bad and focus on the good. knowing what i know now, i like this game even more than remake (which i really REALLY love). rebirth was fuckin great. and thank fuck i didn't get spoiled, tho i never wanna hafta try n rush through a 100+ hour open world ever again. i'm really excited for part three, just hopin i can remember to skip over a lotta the optional stuff. also hoping i won't have to buy a fuckin ps6 or whatever just to play it.

#final fantasy vii rebirth #spoiler #spoilers #final fantasy vii spoilers #final fantasy vii rebirth spoilers #long #i had a lot to say

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miraakulous-cloud-district · 2 years

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Receiving so much love in my oc post and getting some much needed words of encouragement from @bougainvillea-and-saltwater, it all gave me the confidence to post some more about my oc. I can't draw for the life of me, but I do have screenshots. So I present to you: Ravonna, my main oc. I say main, because I've been doing a lot of writing about and with her and I'm working on an enemies to lovers fic with her and Miraak, so she is the most well-rounded and detailed of my ocs. She doesn’t always wear warpaint btw, it depends how much time she has to get ready.

More info and backstory under ‘keep reading’! Likes, reblogs, comments, rambles about your ocs are very much appreciated!

Here she isss, Rumarin said he wanted some music and he needn't say more!

She grew up in Blacklight, in a tavern, with three father figures. One day, a wounded woman came in the tavern, barging in, holding a very small child. The woman was badly injured and looked like she'd been running from something for a long time. All she got to do was give the kid to the innkeeper and beg him to take care of her. After that, she dropped dead. The innkeeper, Endryn, a dunmer, kept that promise and raised Ravonna as if she were his own daughter, with the help of his mercenary brother (whenever he was at home) Teldryn and the tavern's ex-pirate bard, Hjaldir. Hjaldir is an extraordinary bard and taught her many songs, how to play several instruments and how to tell tales that captivate the people. The two were close and always joking around that Hjaldir might just be her biological father. After all, he was a dark haired nord, just like her.

She wanted to become a bard and go to all of Tamriel's provinces and sing and have a journal full of funny and exciting stories to tell. However, if she were to travel the world, she had to learn to defend herself. So she learnt magic. At first with Teldryn, then at the guild of mages. It's almost like she had an affinity for magic, quickly becoming a better mage than Teldryn.

Unfortunately, her life was turned upside down when she came home one day to find her adoptive dad, Endryn, assassinated. It looked to be the work of the Dark Brotherhood. This sparked a strong hatred for assassins and especially, for people who send assassins after someone. It’s cowardly to send someone else to deal with your problems. So she went on a quest to avenge him. First, she had to master the school of destruction, because her new-found quest was much more dangerous than travelling the world as a bard. She now had to deal with assassins. So, she ventured to Vvardenfell to search for the ex-Telvanni wizard that she heard rumors about. It turned out to be a very nice dunmer lady who didn’t agree with the Telvanni principles and lifestyle at all. After some time, she was ready to go out into the world, having mastered the school of destruction and doing decently in enchanting (because there is no way she'll wear full armor. That's heavy and hinders her movement. Enchanted robes all the way).

First she searched all of Morrowind for anyone who would have wanted Endryn dead, and she knew exactly who to look for. He was a very kind mer, too kind, maybe. He lended money to people in need and gave one guy a pretty big sum that he never got to get back. He fled Blacklight right after the assassination. She ended up finding him at the border with Black Marsh. After she dealt with him, however, she wasn't satisfied. She wanted to stop, or at least try to stop the Dark Brotherhood from killing innocents. She didn't want anyone to go through what she did, so she set off to find and destroy the guild. Black Marsh turned out to be extremely weird and poisonous with loads of unaccessible areas. No Dark Brotherhood could be settled here unless they were all Argonians, which was not the case. So she went to Cyrodiil.

There, she researched everything she could about the Dark Brotherhood. She spent most of her time in libraries, looking for any information she could. She didn't find anything useful in books, but she did hear rumours of a Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in Skyrim. Meanwhile, one night at an inn, she met a young man who offered to pay her to take him along on her adventures. Lucien Flavius was his name. He was bubbly and cheery and he also loved to sing. Not the best when it came to defending himself, but the company was nice. They quickly became friends. Feeling like they've known each other their entire lives. They were having fun, raiding goblin caves and robbing Ayelid ruins. All that fun was spoiled, however when they got caught in the middle of a Stormcloak-Imperial fight right at the Cryrodiil- Skyrim border.

But it's all good, they escaped execution with the involuntary help of Alduin. They escaped the big bad dragon and headed to Whiterun to warn the Jarl of the return of dragons. They didn't, however get there, because they encountered a giant and a group of warriors fighting it. Ravonna struck the giant with a huge lightning strike and it turns out that the Companions don't like or trust outsider mages very much. One thing led to the other and she challenged the meaner, more talkative twin, Vilkas, to a duel that ended with both of them arrested in jail. Farkas quickly bailed his brother out of jail (it helped that they were members of the well-respected Companions of Jorrvaskr), but no matter how much Lucien bargained with the guards, they wouldn't release Ravonna. So Lucien went on his own to warn the Jarl, while Ravonna got to know her cellmate, Inigo, a little better.

When the dragon attacked, the whole city of Whiterun felt it. Ravonna finally convinced Inigo to work together and escape and fight the dragon. She wasn't going to let another city be ruined by a dragon, even if she died in the process, she could at least have peace of mind that she tried. Helgen affected her very much and she felt extremely guilty that she wasn't able to fight that dragon then and there.

They managed to lure the dragon to the watchtower and did everything they could to fight it. When guards started dying and Lucien got injured pretty bad, Ravonna conjured a huge wall that surrounded her and the dragon, trapping the foul creature with her. She fought like she never had before, using every bit of energy and knowledge that she had. When she struck the final blow the wall crumbled and everyone nearby was able to witness the Dragonborn absorbing that dragon's soul.

With a new purpose in the world, and the threat of Apocalypse, she realized that she had a much bigger prophecy to fulfill than she ever would have thought.

Personality-wise, she is a jolly spirit, despite everything, doesn't like to think about stuff too much and plan ahead. A very 'live in the moment' person, she loves to sing and joke around. Her favourite past time activity is probably sharing tankards of mead, stories and songs with fellow travellers and with her fellowship. She holds grudges, unfortunately. The type to never forgive and never forget.

As for her companions, she's got herself quite the fellowship by the time the fic starts, which is when she first encounters the cultists sent by Miraak. She's got Lucien and Inigo, of course, but Rumarin joins them after they meet while grave-robbing. He is very funny and fits right in. And if you read this short fic I did, you know how Marcurio joins them as well.

If you read this and bared with me through Ravonna's backstory just know that I love and appreciate you very much🥺❤️

#skyrim #tes #skyrim fanfiction #my writing #tesblr #miraak x ldb #i know this isn't how the story goes canon-wise but I like to change things up #skyrim oc #oc: ravonna #if you read the whole thing just know that Ravonna would like to give you a bottle of mead and a hug :)

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zachsgamejournal · 1 year

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PLAYING: Sable

To quote one of the best Star Wars movies of all time, "Now this is pod racing!"

I saw a screenshot of Sable, and it was the character riding a hover-bike through a vast desert with an 80's cartoon vibe and I knew I was going to love the game. What I saw in the early screenshots and videos and is what I expected and what I'm getting: a peaceful, but emotional exploration-heavy adventure game. It's exactly the type of game I love and this is hitting all the notes perfectly.

The game is reminding me of both Wavetale and AER. Also a little bit of Roki, Borderlands, and Omno--but never mind, we're getting distracted. The Wavetale involves a spirited character traveling around a unique, open, post-apocalyptic world. And similar to such, involves some platforming!! Aer comes in the form of simple but effective graphics, "flying" to destinations, and exploring mysterious temples and zones.

I love it!

So, the beginning of the game has it "praying" at a temple. Sable, our main character is a woman--which after playing something a little more male-centric like KOTOR is nice--and she lives a village of nice people who are also mostly women. Cool.

Everyone wears masks. I assume that's an art decision to avoid making and animating faces. But they make the masks story relevant, so no worries--we'll pretend not to notice. Sable is about to start her..."Gliding"? She basically wonders around trying to figure out what she wants to be/do with the rest of her life. Sounds a lot like what college kinda is, but totally should be. Or really, what one's 20s should be: a chance to explore, make mistakes, and gain worldly knowledge/wisdom.

But first, she needs a bike. They give you a clunker. Partly as a joke and story element, but I suspect it also makes you appreciate your decent bike later. You're tasked with exploring some zones to find parts to your bike. One part is stolen and hidden by a local trouble maker, but we learn that she was really just nervous about the change brought about Sable's leaving. She may never see Sable again and that's a lot to contend with.

Interestingly, the game is really hooked into its emotions. Every character interaction has a blend of excitement and sorrow for the journey. This is an important step for Sable's culture, but also a scary and sad one--as you miss people as they go off to find their place in the world, and you may never see them again.

I think this works--because many games/movies/books make the adventure a bad thing. Take Lord of the Rings, Frodo wants to live a life of peace in Hobbiton. It's against his wishes to set out on a journey across the country to drop a ring off with the elves. And then it's against his will to commit to carrying that ring to a volcano deep within the territory of a magical and powerful enemy. So there's this weird conflict where in order to have adventure and fun, we must almost endure pain and horror. Sable says fuck that. Adventure is good! Exploring is good! Doesn't mean it's not sad to be away from your friends, but it's not something to be feared or done out of fear.

The game is relaxing. I've moved from the starting area, which is about as big as opening World of Warcraft areas (and if you know me, I love any time a game gives me WoW vibes). Now I'm in a larger area. The game has "towns" wherein one can claim quests. Usually it's go here and get this, but some have some interesting elements: such as using seeds to lure and catch beetles, or using a puffy thing to convince a giant beetle to unblock a tunnel. The game isn't original, but it's good. Like a Cohen Brother's movie, it's using the tried and true methods of game design to make an interesting and unique experience.

There's no fighting, so far, and I appreciate that. Fighting is boring. It's just an excuse to slow you down or insert drama when one has no creativity. But my favorite part of 3D adventure games going back to Mario 64 is the exploring. Sure, combat can be fun sometimes, but I can be entertained for hours just exploring. Like WoW, I love seeing this cool world the developers crafted. And I'm inconvenienced by all the mobs I have to cut through to do so. I'd be just as happy to play WoW with no combat. Wouldn't fit well with the title I guess.

Sable is exactly what I needed though. i tried to play Jak & Daxter for my family recently and no one was into it. For my wife, there isn't enough story. Sure, they gave you mission objectives at the towns, but once you're out in the world it's just exploring (which I love). With Zelda games, there tends to be a bit more story happening mid dungeon and exploration. Or clever puzzles to overcome. But also--the game is pretty cynical. It was made by unconsciously sexist men thinking that being mean and grumpy was funny. And in truth, i found it funny when I was younger. Now I find it cringe and uninteresting. I still love Jak, but it's not the "story" experience I want nor what I want to expose my kids to. Sable is much more interesting, and it's possible my family would dig it too.

But Sable is just for me right now. We still haven't beaten Kingdom Hearts and need to get back on that program. And i'm really enjoying Sable. I have many games I hope to get through--but I'm going to try to take my time with Sable and play it my own pace.

#Zach's Game Journal #PLAYING #Sable #PC Gaming #Video Games #Gaming

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peace-coast-island · 7 years

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Intro to the Choices tie-in quest (part 1): What Could Happen.

Chose the second option haha

#High School Story #hss #hss game #What Could Happen #i'm taking screenshots for this and the main story quest and posting #idk if I'm queuing or posting randomly yet probably latter #Delanie Buchanan #Donnie Kaplan #Payton #Nishan #Julian Castillo #screenshots

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darkland-blood · 2 years

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My Problem with Stories

(i know i usually Post positive Things, fun AU facts or theorys on this Site, however i need to Take this off my chest.)

Recently i have become more active on Wattpad again. One day before continuing i decided to get some inspiration from other Stories to kinda get that creative spirit. So i started Reading. It was pretty entertaining at first however after some time i found myself bored and quickly stopped. However i still wanted to find that creativity as i wanted to finish the next chapter.

So i went on YouTube, hoping something would get my attention and to my surprise, it did.

I was recommended a simple gacha Story that would Not Take Long and sounded relativly interessting. However after some time the same Thing happened. I got bored, went out of the app and with nothing in mind i barely wrote anything.

Now, why would i tell you this?

Well i want to somehow show you my problem, or more specifically what my Problem with those Stories is.

However since it's hard to explain my Problem, i will try to say it as simple as possible.

The Stories that i mostly have a Problem with are short, fast moving, overfed with information and confusing, and here's why:

The time and the place in the story:

Usually when you have a short story only a few places should Matter. Those Locations shouldn't be overly big and should be pretty close to the main location.

When it comes to bigger Stories, you can have a Lot of different Locations however there should be a few that are actually important for the Story while the Rest are Just random quests. These important Locations should be somewhat big, with a basic Story that has some holes. These holes would than create a question, whose answer would lie between the Walls of the Location or in a different Location that is nothing more than a simple side quest, yet important to the main Plot.

I get that creating a story is not easy, however it is not an excuse for when you write a story that is confusing as fuck.

One good example are gacha stories.

Now, i'm not saying that all gacha stories are terrible, the gacha Community May have it's problems as it seems that a Lot of people make stupid shit Like gacha heat or say Things Like: "ThiS /gender/sexuality/ dOEsN'T EXiSt" or "/Insert Name/ iS mINe". Inside the Community are actual talented people that are able to make something entertaining and Take responsibility of their actions.

When it comes to place building the gacha people usually Like to give their charakters teleportation powers so they simply spawn at any location they want. This 'teleportation' May Not be something Bad as the creators probably didn't want to Take thousands of Screenshots of their charakters walking to the location or are just lazy, but honestly i think that they missed a great oppertunity to show the world building.

The Wattpad Stories i've read don't really have this Problem and somehow manage everything to Work (with some exeptions) so we're moving on!

The charakters:

Charakters are very important to have in a story, without them there would be nothing to Tell.

There are main Charakters, Side Charakters, Charakter that mean nothing to the Plot and Just exist in the background, Charakters that are not important but become important once they fill in some hole in the main story and usually die after they said what the Plot needed them to say, the side-kick Charakter and so on...

When it comes to Charakters i have different opinions and Problems depending what kind of Story they are in.

My biggest Problem are Charakters that belong to a Show/movie/book that are present in a fanmade Story because the Story takes place in the Show/movie/book their in.

"wait-.. hol up a Minute Klaruny, isn't this Site basically all about Charakters from a Show living in a story that Takes place in an alternative Version of the Show?! Are you telling people that they are terrible that they do that yet you don't call yourself Out because it's okay when you do it?! You're a terrible Person Klaruny, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU-"

the answer to your questions are yes and no.

Let me explain.

Honestly i do not hate fanmade Stories of Shows/movies/books that i Like, i mostly enjoy them. Sometimes a really fun and creative Story is able to be found, that you Wish would be turned into a canon episode, because you Like so much.

However that's were my Problem comes in...

When you write a fanfic of of a Show/movie/book/whatever you often give in stuff that isn't present in the show. Of course that isn't a problem. It makes Charakters more interresting and gets you invested into the Stories even more. However Sometimes you have to stop yourself and say 'too much is too much'.

One great example is Crusher from the Show "Blaze and the mega mashines".

In the Show Crusher is a large blue Truck that creates cheats using his cheat pack???(is that what it's called???) because he wants to eliminate the other racers in order to be the only one in the race track so he can easily win. Outside of that He is also whiney, inpacient, easily annoyed, unmannerd, rude, loud and self-absorbed.

A Lot of people seem to like him, however i don't think they like him as a whole.

When you read some Stories which have Crusher involved you notice that His Charakter is slightly different. Usually he's more mature and doesn't bahave Like a giant man-child, however there are also Stories where he's the complete opposite.

Some Stories even Cross the Line and add some wacky Backstory, that should be tragic but come out as weird as fuck because the story doesn't Take itself seriously. We will come back to backstories soon.

In such Stories you often no longer recognize Crusher because in those Stories he's a completly different Person. A Lot of people don't Like that, including me. We want Crusher as that whiney clumsy bitch and Not this Charakter, because that's how we know him.

If you Take Crusher and give him little Things Like making him bigger or more mature or scarred from head to toe or you want to give him a sibling or some gender/Sexuality, than that's okay. Just don't add to much because If you do you can Change him into a completly different Charakter.

The backstories:

Oh Boy, this is going to be hard... *exhale*

We all probably know what a Backstory is, and for those who don't:

•Backstory (noun)

"a History or background created for a fictional Charakter in a Film or Television Programme."

- the internet

I noticed that in a lot of stories (espacially the cringey or confusing ones) a lot of Charakters of the Main Cast are given traumatic Backstories, visible injuries (scars, bruises) and unique behavior that was caused by a sertain traumatic experience/s.

When i firstly heard about such Stories, i thought the people that were telling me this were having a stroke.

I still do Not understand why sertain people take such serious Problems/topics and use them to get Views/Likes/whatever.

Now please say it with me:

YOU DON'T NEED TO GIVE THE CHARAKTERS A TRAUMATIC BACKSTORY TO HAVE AN INTERESSTING AND INVESTING STORY.

and

JUST BECAUSE A CHARAKTER HAS A SCAR THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT IT WENT THROUGH A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE.

These two are my biggest Problem when it comes to all of it.

Honestly i can't even Tell you how many Stories i have seen that throw those two "factors" Out the Wind Just to get what they want.

When it comes to examples, i think there are too many to choose... However i have a perfekt example that is so unoriginal and cringey that it's painfull to exept its existence.

...the hybrid princess from the gacha Community... Sweet Lord Just kill me now...

The hybrid princess is probably something even the Community itself cringes about. It's a Joke to society and we should probably leave it at that.

Here's a "short" description of a typical hybrid princess:

is human at birth but after sometime reveals to be some kind of Angel demon Alpha Beta cock Animal hybrid with wacky Powers

Obviously royalty (there is literally princess in the title)

Has a large Ass scar somewhere on their Body from and i quote: "sEIrtAiN TraUMatIC eXpeRIEncE"

Was bullied by everyone around them, including Friends, Family, random Strangers, etc.

Have a weird piece of jewelry that they got from that one Person who was actually nice to them, that is obviously going to die at some point

DEPRESSION

This was painfull to write...

Like i said you don't need a traumatic Story to make something interessting. And If you want to have a serious topic in your story, than handle it as a serious Problem. A lot of cringey Stories ( and weirdly some gacha trends) do not handle their sensitive topics seriously, which makes them disrespectfull and even disgusting to watch.

When you handle a real Life struggle in your story, try to show it realistically. Show their struggle, discribe how they feel, allow other charakters offer Help to them. I know it's hard to write such things but If you try and give it your best you may actually write a very compeling and mature story that will always be worth a reading...

Before i'm going to end this Post i want to say that this is all an opinion.

This Post is Not an Attack to anybody who Likes to write Stories and May have something in them that i do Not Like.

Like i said this is all just an opinion that you can read and than ignore for the Rest of your Life.

I don't force you to agree with me, you have the right to agree and disagree with sertain Points and have your own opinion on them.

However If you want to improve your stories and you have found yourself Reading this, please don't Take my opinion to seriously. There are a Lot of people Out in the internet that have great advice on how you can improve your writing than some random 15-year old Girl on some Site.

I Wish you a good morning/day/afternoon/noon/evening/night

BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY

A DARKLAND-BLOOD THEORY :"D

Hahahaha kill me ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

#blaze and the monster machines #batmm #theory time #babbbyyyy #negativity #༎ຶ‿༎ຶ #i want to diiieeee

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bubblelliot · 4 years

Text

Here's my second character! I will also present their teammates a bit since the crew is much more like a family this time! (Might also add pics of the others in following posts and MAYBE of his animals too)

Særos Sandiel and The zookeepers

(This art is a picrew which I do not have the rights on, here is the link to it: https://picrew.me/image_maker/62745)

The name of the team mostly comes from a joke saying that "Mama Lyræ is our zookeeper and that we are the Zookeepers to a ton of pets. Also, Yarina can shapeshift into beasts sooooooo yeah.

Technicalities:

Særos is my very first character played in D&D. We actually started playing on the other game I talked about last time, but we switched to D&D. His character sheet is actually available on DND beyond, but I'm still gonna give details here.

Those are his attributes. (He actually got an additional point of charisma after I wrote this and was too lazy to take another screenshot sorry x) )

He is recorded as a high Elf, but is actually of two different bloodlines. He is VERY young for an elf, but his exact age is unknown (well yes but know, you'll see). He has 5 wizard and 2 cleric levels, making him currently level 7.

Equipment:

I am NOT gonna go through everything Særos has, cause that would be VERY long. He has a heavy armor, he has a staff of healing and a shortsword, but he mostly uses his magic. He also has, in his spellbook, a collection of dried flowers.

Familiars:

Særos has a TON of pets he acquired through the different quests the party went on. The first one is a frog named Lepiota he found wounded and saved. He then bought an old black cat he named Persephone (even if the cat is a male 😂). Finally, he also bought two ferrets (fluffy noodles ❤️❤️) which he named Elton and Freddy (this one was as a reference to one of our former player who really loves Elton John and Freddy Mercury). He loves them with all his heart and will absolutely kill anyone who tries to hurt his babies.

Allies:

Særos' main ally is, obviously, his twin, Edran. They are very similar, but Særos is usually pretty well kept with his short hair always brushed and his braids made every morning, whereas Edran is a bit shorter, more immature, usually pretty dirty with blood all over their clothes (which are poofy dressed he hides poison in 😂) and messy hair. There is also Lyræ. She is a paladin coming from far away lands. She is a human with elf ancestors and dragon blood. She has a wife and children and thus, she is pretty much the mom of the group. (The DM literally gave her two custom attacks she can use in RP: the flick of anger that gives 1pt of bludgeoning + 1pt of psychic damage and the disapproving look that gives 2pts of psychic damage everytime she does it + makes the target intimidated). Then, there is Finian, a human assassin. Finian and Særos are pretty neutral about each other, but Edran is in absolute admiration of him, so Særos is grateful that Finian doesn't just shatter his sibling's trust. The last member, who was actually someone that was rescued by the party, is Yarina. She is a very shy aasimar and is pretty much the definition of being pure EXCEPT she is obsessed with daggers (no joke, she has 23 of them). They were recently joined by a rogue elf called Adressin who actually attacked them at first.

Appearance:

This picrew is already pretty accurate. Særos (as well as Edran actually) has blond almost white hair, but it's actually fluffier than on the picture. He has two braids, one in front of each ear, a few freckles and red-pink eyes. He is very pale, quite small and very frail. He looks pretty androgynous and rather young, though he usually passes as a bit older since he is an elf.

Backstory and campaign:

So the campaign isn't really a big story like in Rhodrag's case, so I'll tell the party's story, but not the quests.

The twins' first memory is waking up in a bed, only knowing their name. They meet with the lovely wood elf lady who save them, and learn they were found in the sand by a nearby river. For that reason, they are given the last name "Sandiel".

They live a relatively normal life with her, for around 10 years, until they are attacked by drows. Their adopted mother successfully hides them by using magic and they learn they are wanted because they are part drow and part high-elf, meaning pretty much every every elven races will want to kill them. The woman successfully protects the twins. She is taken out of the house and, to this day, the twins don't know what happened of her, whether she was killed or taken.

They left and reached a nearby city. There, they survived by stealing and being street entertainers (for example, even if he has no rogue level, Særos is proefficient in stealth, sleight of hands, deception, etc. He also is proefficient in performance. He learned to sing, the art of divination and a bit of magic.)

One night though, Særos came back to their hiding place to find his sibling dead. All he could understand was that they died of both malnutrition and hypothermia.

Out of desperation, he tried every spell he knew, but nothing happened. He tried reanimation, but it had been to long. Out of despair, he prayed any god possible to help him, saying he couldn't live in this unfair world without Edran.

A god did answer. He is actually a god from the other game we started the campaign in before switching to DND.

He is called Nuodai the Trickster.

He offered a deal to Særos: he would bring back Edran and even guarantee him power and success, and in exchange, when Særos would be powerful enough, the Trickster would take his elven traits which hold part of his powers, as well as 200 years of his life. Out of desperation, Særos accepted.

He woke up the next morning. His sibling was by his side, clearly not dead, but not entirely alive. They were now a revived.

Things went on, Edran not knowing, and Særos eventually stopped thinking about the deal, only happy to have his twin back. They moved from the city, trying to reach a bigger one, and were, once again, attacked by drows. He used a spell to put his twin in safety and attacked the drows, but was, if course, neutralized.

He was taken and they made him a slave while they tried to capture Edran to kill them together.

Fast forward, Edran is taken into an underdark prison. He meets again with his brother and both if them are beaten up. They successfully defend though and they are thrown in a cell as it is decided they're are to be executed the next day. This is where they meet Lyræ and Finian.

They plan to escape as well as a few other NPCs. They are able to leave the cell and steal a bit of stuff while a vrock attacks the guards. They escape and reach a teleporter. There, Særos successfully brings everyone back to the surface. Newly free, they all start to look for a village. After properly introducing each others, they finally reach a tiny elf village. The twins stay as stealthy as possible but end up being noticed and attacked by guards. They then have a choice: they could be changed into simple would elves or they have to leave. Særos knows it's not gonna work on Edran, and bargains to be able to stay. At first, the headmaster threatens to kill him for that, but he ends up agreeing to let them in the city, guarded, until the night falls.

They then shop and leave the city.

They end up in a forrest Særos realizes is corrupted. There, they were attacked by a HUGE snake touched by the corruption. At first, everyone tries to kill it except Edran and quickly, Særos and Finian join them. Særos finally cuts the tip of it's tail where the corruption was and Edran and Finian calm it.

Lyræ is terrified of it and finally lets them all know that her best friend was killed by a giant snake who ate her alive. (This is freaking terrifying yo.)

In the end, a fight starts and Særos, enraged, leaves everyone and runs towards the center of the corruption. There he is attacked by corrupted elves and tree creatures we happily called Groots. Edran joins him and Særos basically rages (he used they most powerful spell he had and literally exploded them.

Edran, while attacking, starts gaining weird memories.

Fast forward to the end of the quest, Særos is happily searching for animals and flowers when he and Edran hear strange noises coming from a tree. Edran climbs it and a wood elf girl falls from the tree, before Edran jumps on her from the too of the tree.

The team introduced themselves to her and she happily talks to them. So yeah, that's how we met Nayhru.

The team reaches a weird village and after the whole snake incident, leaves the party for a while, promising to find them again soon and assuring she would always be closer than they think.

They reach the village which reveals to be a village of gnomes and there they meet with a gnome (who's player inspired the names of my furrets x) ) and a Goliath travelling together. They all find the village empty before being attacked by a troll and... Metal gnomes?

They kill them, uneager to die, and search the village. They find flowers in the middle of the village and Særos takes one for his collection. Særos and Edran are attacked by an ooze and at some point, the ooze attacks Edran just before being killed by Nayrhu. At that moment, Edran starts turning into a robot as well, with the corruption growing from their arm. Særos tries to cut off the arm, but us unable and the corruption takes Edran's whole body.

They leave the village and are able to find a Druid eager to help them make a cure for Edran and the gnomes, but he needs Elder sage. He describes it and Særos shows his flower to the Druid, who confirms it is Elder sage. They go back to the village to get flowers, cane back and turned Edran back into a flesh being.

And that's when they remembered dying and being brought back to life. Edran and Særos cried in each other's arms and then continued on.

They got in a cavern near the village from where the trolls always came. There, the found a girl, chained, with glowing wings. They freed her and she introduced herself as Yarina. (Fun fact: Yarina's player is my SO, and both Yarina and Særos have the spell suggestion, so when the crew found a the boss hiding something, we just made it run away. Nice. )

The team found a clockwork dragon and helped it. They then left again. Finian had to leave a couple times, and at some point, the team realized that, even if they are young, the twins were actually a lot older than they thought: They assumed Edran's death happened when they were around 13 and that it had been around 6 years, meaning Særos was actually around 19.

They were reunited with Lyræ and began other quests. In one of them, the team encountered a wishing fountain that filled any wish you had under certain conditions. Særos asked to know his whole story, from the lives of his parents up to now. The fountain gave him a magic book that tells his story and updates. It has no name so Særos just calls it The story book.

Some time passed and the team continued on. They were traveling to the capital until one night, Nayrhu and Edran caught a thief about to steal their stuff. They quickly stopped him and realized he was very young. Instead of kicking his butt, they woke up the whole team and decided together to bring him to the capital and help him make money to survive there. And that's how they met Adressin.

The zookeepers reached the capital where they are supposed to find Finian who joined outlaws he met in another quest.

Before finding Finian, they decided to do a few quests to earn money with Adressin.

Everyone through the day kept noticing Særos bring super bold, a lot bolder than he usually is, for example, telling Yarina who was wearing a magic dress that she looked "Incredibly beautiful" as if she was "made if pure light". No one really thought anything of it though and just shoved it away.

One night, they decided a drinking contest was a good idea and everyone joined except Adressin. The next morning, everyone was doing good, maybe a tad nauseous, except for Lyræ and Særos who were absolutely fucked up. They both used spells to heal their hangover, but Særos remained mildly unwell, choosing to go on their quest anyways.

Symptoms were the following:

-A headache that was mostly located to the top front of his head

-His low back itching and hurting a LOT

-His eyes feeling dry

No one really knew what was going on, some didn't even really notice.

As they went on with their first quest, they started noticing weird stuff about Særos' appearance: His hair looked more golden than white, as they used to, there were two bumps appearing on his forehead around the location of his headache, his eyes looked.... Weird...? But no one really saw anything peculiar, his skin, usually also white, now looked kinda pink.

He doesn't really notice the changes and doesn't understand what is happening which utterly FRIGHTENS him, but he hides it. Yarina started understanding what was happening and Edran out all the pieces together and now they know everything.

To be continued...

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